white
dimity, with folds of soft net about her throat, and a turban of the
same material on her head, she was a pleasant and picturesque figure.
For the afternoon she affected satin, either plum-colored, or of the
cinnamon shade in which some of my readers may have seen her elsewhere,
with slippers to match, and a cap suggesting the Corinthian order. In
this array, majesty replaced picturesqueness, and there were those in
Elmerton who quailed at the very thought of this tiny old woman, upright
in her ebony chair, with the acanthus-leaf in finest Brussels nodding
over her brows. The last touch of severity was added when Mrs. Tree was
found knitting, as on the present occasion.

"Ithuriel Butters is a sing'lar man!" Direxia went on, investigating
with exquisite nicety the corner of a pane. "He gave me a turn just now,
he did so."

She waited a moment, but no sign coming, continued. "I was to Miss
Phoebe 'n' Vesty's when he druv up, and we passed the time o' day. I
said, 'How's Mis' Butters now, Ithuriel?' I said. I knew she'd been re'l
poorly a spell back, but I hadn't heard for a consid'able time.

"'I ain't no notion!' says he.

"'What do you mean, Ithuriel Butters?' I says.

"'Just what I say,' says he.

"'Why, where is she?' I says. I thought she might be visitin', you know.
She has consid'able kin round here.

"'I ain't no idee,' says he. 'I left her in the bur'in'-ground, that's
all I know.'

"Mis' Tree, that woman has been dead a month, and I never knew the first
word about it. They're all sing'lar people, them Butterses. She was a
proper nice woman, though, this Mis' Butters. He had hopes of Di-plomy
one spell, after his last died--_she_ was a reg'lar fire-skull; he
didn't have much peace while she lived--died in a tantrum too, they say;
scol't so hard she bust a vessel, and it run all through her, and car'd
her off--but Di-plomy couldn't seem to change her state, no more'n Miss
Phoebe 'n' Vesty.

"My sakes! if there ain't Miss Vesty comin' now. I'll hasten and put
away these things, Mis' Tree, and be back to let her in."

Miss Vesta Blyth came soberly along the street and up the garden path.
She was a quaint and pleasant picture, in her gown of gray and white
foulard, with her little black silk mantle and bonnet. Some thirty years
ago Miss Vesta and her sister Miss Phoebe had decided that fashion was
a snare; and since then they had always had their clothes made on the
same model, to the despair of